How diabetes affects a child’s school performance

Children living with type 1 diabetes can study and perform in education at the same levels as their peers. A new Danish study reveals that diabetes does not affect children test scores. The study findings lessen the worries of many parents that have children with type 1 diabetes, which develops in childhood or young adulthood.

When type 1 diabetes occurs, the pancreas fails to produce the hormone insulin that is required for the body to transform blood sugar into energy. This leads to children suffering from complications such as seriously high blood sugar, or low levels of sugar in the brain, both of which are associated with cognitive problems. However, not all studies have tied type 1 diabetes to poor academic performance, researchers note in JAMA journal, where the research is published.

Associate Professor Niels Skipper, PhD, of the Department of Economics and Business Economics, says, ‘It is possible that advances in treatment modalities over recent decades have improved not only gaps in mortality and morbidity between individuals with diabetes and the overall population but also have improved gaps in school performance.’

Besides the technology improvements, the authors add that it could also be because the parents of children with type 1 diabetes direct ‘more of their resources toward the affected child, giving rise to both better school performance and better metabolic control’.